Friday, January 07, 2011

Z is for Zana

And with this post we come to the end of Historical Tapestry's Alphabet in Historical Fiction challenge. It's been fun choosing and reviewing these 26 books over the past year and more. Thanks to my fellow participants and also all of the readers and commenters for keeping me company along the way.

I'm choosing Zana Bell's Forbidden Frontier as my final selection, not only because it fits the pattern but also because it leads nicely into the Nautical Fiction challenge I'll be taking on in 2011. This one doesn't count for the latter because it's a book I'd read a while ago and had reviewed elsewhere, but it's worth highlighting, and revisiting it may help me find my sea legs a little faster!

Charlotte Badger is a heroine of a type I’d not encountered before. A strapping, self-reliant, and clever woman, Charlotte’s not above a little thievery or whoring if it’ll get her a few more drams of rum. She narrates her story beginning with her transportation from London to Port Jackson in faraway New South Wales in the year 1800. Sharing the harrowing voyage with Charlotte and her fellow convicts are Nathan Wesley, an idealistic missionary, and his distant wife, Elizabeth, whose viewpoints appear in alternating sections. Their paths come together when Charlotte convinces Nathan to make her their house servant.

To their dismay, the Wesleys discover their new home consists of little more than ramshackle huts with earthen floors, muddy roads, and a lumpy, deserted landscape. The social strata amongst the settlers mimic that of their English homeland, with rich landowners at the top of the scale and convict labor and the despised Irish at the very bottom. Charlotte finds a sort of freedom in her life outside prison, while Nathan follows his adventurous spirit to extremes, and Elizabeth hides her feelings under a mask of decorum to preserve her marriage. It’s only later, as each forms new relationships and undergoes difficult trials, that they make peace with their true selves.
The historical record provides the bare bones of Charlotte’s tale: the first recorded white woman in New Zealand, she arrived there in 1806 after staging a mutiny. This leaves plenty of room for speculation on her background and motivations. Bell ably captures the difficulties of eking out an existence on a new frontier, Sydney’s gradual development into a full-fledged town, and the way disillusionment can transform into opportunity, and vice versa, at a moment’s notice. Charlotte’s irreverent, good-humored voice and her ability to seize the best out of every meager prospect kept me reading. I enjoyed this novel immensely.

Forbidden Frontier was published by Mira Australia in 2008 in trade paper at $32.95 Aus. ($37.00 NZ).

Glad you managed to snag a copy! I looked around and it may be out of print already. Here's a price chart of where it can be obtained, using the Australian book search feature Marg posted about recently. It's also on Bookfinder.com.

I was wondering what you'd come up with for "Z"! I must look this one up. There is another book around about Charlotte which is more a fictionalised history written by a woman with a family connection, Angela Badger - it's called "Charlotte Badger: Buccaneer"

One of my favourite convict stories is "Remember Me", by Lesley Pearse, a novel about Mary Broad, one of the first successful escapees from the penal colony of Australia.

Thanks for that link, Annis. For some reason it didn't work for me but I found the review on the NZ Herald website. The two books sound similar in tone, though Badger's seems to focus more on her experiences in NZ rather than in Sydney. I'll have to find myself a copy. Charlotte Badger isn't well known at all in the US... before Zana Bell's novel, I hadn't heard about her.

I'm impressed by the Amazon UK reviews of "Remember Me" - nearly all five stars! I bought it a while ago and think it would be a good choice to read for the Nautical challenge. While in Canada last year, I bought another novel about Mary Broad, Rosa Jordan's Far from Botany Bay.

Annis, I don't know why the link didn't work either! Must be something weird with their site.

Good question - I'm not sure, other than that I'm a historical fiction omnivore and buy/read books from all over. An expensive hobby :) Bookcloseouts gets in a fair number of books from Aus/NZ publishers so I pick up many that way, and if I enjoy the authors' works, I'll go out looking for more. One of the first novels I read about Australian history was Catherine Gaskin's I Know My Love, about a family of early settlers - I enjoy frontier novels set wherever, so that may have spurred my interest in others.

I should add that a few years ago, an author named Loren Teague wrote a fantastic cover story on NZ historicals for the Historical Novels Review, and we corresponded over email for a bit. She sent me a number of recommendations, and I'm slowly working my way through them.

I found another copy thanks to you informing of that website.. bookfinder. Thank you. I didn't know about that one.

I, too, read Australian historical fiction when I can obtain it without paying an arm and a leg. LOL. I don't care where a book is published... if it's about lady pirates or lady pilots, I MUST HAVE IT!!! Only requirement: Must affordable and must be in English.

Ladies, this brings up another Australian book I cannot find. I tried bookfinder and the only copy was about 50 bucks.. Can you ladies give me any more ideas? I'm looking for Glory Girl by Peter Yeldham. The only U.S copies are 45 to 50 dollars and that is just outrageous and to buy from Australia, would be the same after shipping. I just wondered if you would have any ideas for me?

Since you mentioned lady pilots, I'll mention I know of one coming out in April (in the US): Wings: A Novel of WWII Flygirls by Karl Friedrich. I found the author's website here.

Annis or Marg may have other suggestions, but one Australian seller who discounts and doesn't charge an arm and a leg for international postage (last I ordered from them) is the Australian Online Bookshop. It would probably cost you $30-35 total including shipping. Still high, but books Down Under tend to be pricey.

Glad to hear the A-Z challenge is continuing, Marg. Since there weren't any new letters, a couple of us weren't sure if it had ended with the end of the year, and decided to finish up the alphabet on the usual schedule. Once you have the Mr Linky set up for Y and Z, I'll add mine in!

Australasian fiction is quite expensive even for those of us who live here, and I expect it's due to relatively limited print runs. Luckily our library will generally buy stuff which is home-grown :) BD do sometimes stock them, but unless you pick up a copy as a pre-order or just after publication you'll miss out, for the same reason - they don't have access to many copies.